Famine evictions between Ruan and Tubber, 1849

[Paddy Casey]

The following appeared in the Limerick and Clare Examiner - Saturday 30 June 1849:

EVICTIONS IN RUAN. DREADFUL WRETCHEDNESS. (From our Special Correspondent)

I have visited the districts of Lohead, and Blakemount, where extermination has latterly produced its most fearful consequences. The property belongs to Lord Prime Sergeant Fitzgerald, who voted on the side of Ireland and Liberty in '98, and opposed the Legislative Union and who would, were he living, probably disapprove of the deeds of his son. And the grandsire of Lord Fitzgerald, known by the name of “Garrett of the eel weir” from the circumstance of his having made a fortune by the traffic in eels, taught mercy in his day, and was respected for his acts and charitable disposition. The agent in this instance is a Mr. Sampson, and the sub who carried out the mandate of the upper sub is a man named Paddy Curtin, whose fame in the trade of house levelling has spread far and wide. The evicted families are now squatted in a most appalling state of wretchedness, on the Commons of Moyrhee. The misery prevalent in this Moyrhee is indescribable. The dead for days lie with the living, the latter not being able to bury the former. Imagine scenes like the following, and ask are we living under sway of the British Queen. In one house four persons were found to be starving; two subsequently died of starvation, and the third, who shortly shared the same fate, was concealed under a pillow for days, lest the rations of the dead should be stopped by the relieving officer.

Another family, named Connor, 14 in number, were in such a state of health and disease, when they were visited by the Reverend Mr. Vaughan, that the clergyman could not stand the intolerable stench issuing from the wretched room where the family lay on some straw, without any kind of covering whatsoever. In another house lived two sisters, and a helpless little boy; the sisters having died without any means to inter them, the poor little boy sold his own rations for an old chest, in which he deposited the remains and had them thus interred. Gracious Lord, how long will this barbarous neglect be tolerated and unpunished ?

The following are the names of the evicted:- Joan Ryan, 1; Pat Keane, 5; John Sullivan, 4; Pat Powell, 6; Thos McNerney, 5; James Byrnes, 5; James Fox, 5; John Holland, 3; Catherine Ryan, 1; John Camidell, 5; Mary Holland, 2; Pat Sullivan, 5; Mary Sullivan, 2; Thomas Byrne, 3; Michael Byrne, 2; Thomas Carney, 4; Thomas Ford, 5; Mary Keating, 1; Mary Maloney, 1; Mary Morrisy, 2; Pat O'Neil, 6; John Fogarty, 6; Michael Egan, 4; John Hynes, 5; Stephen Murphy, 4; Pat Marlbow, 2. In all 92 souls.


The writer says he visited "...the districts of Lohead and Blakemount...". "Lohead" was probably the area around Lughid bridge straddling the road from Tubber Cross to Crusheen. Blakemount was/is an estate in the townland of Knockatermon in Tubber. Moyhree Commons lie immediately to the south of Knockatermon. Being common land, anyone could settle in the Commons and so they were populated by the poor and poorest of the district. The landscape consists largely of barren crags of Burren limestone which cover that area. By carting in earth to fill the limestone cracks it was possible to create very small gardens and potato patches to subsist on but they would have been rapidly blasted away by the rain and wind so any serious long-term agriculture would have been impossible.

The inhabitants of the Commons not only suffered from hunger but were also victims of epidemics (see http://www.ourlibrary.ca/phpbb2/viewtop ... it=ciseach for an example).

Contemporary court reports tell us that Moyrhee Commons were a thriving centre of bootlegging (see http://www.ourlibrary.ca/phpbb2/viewtop ... lery#p5374) and also the place to which miscreants fled when pursued by the constabulary. It was in Moyrhee Commons that Bridget Cullinan was murdered for informing on a gang of illicit distillers (see http://www.ourlibrary.ca/phpbb2/viewtop ... linan#p328). It was, so to speak, the Dodge City of Tubber.